P5 Pick It Up at Scapa

The 'Packed Lunch Award' goes to Scott this week, who brought no single use disposable plastic packaging.

Class 5 went back to Scapa to get rid of some of the troublesome marine litter that has washed up on the beach. Although the Pick Up Three Pieces bin was full when we got there the bin lorry soon came to empty it.

That is 1100litres of litter that won't be on the beach!

 

 

This time we had some signs to mark the area we were working in and to remind dog owners to keep their dogs under control - it seemed to work!

 

It is a nice change to sit on sand and make sand castles at playtime too.

 

Then to work picking up lots of tiny bits of plastic wrap and short bits of rope which have been dropped from fishing boats. Its not easy disentangling it from teh dried seaweed. We found a bird carcass which looked as if its stomach had been full of tiny bits of plastic. These bits are now back in the environment and may end up killing another birs or its chicks by slowly starving it of real food.

 

 We found other bits of litter which were identifiable like a paint brush handle, a comb, an electric shaver, a lighter and some food litter, but most of the litter was rope buried in the sand.

 

Team work meant we could remove buried items if we all worked together.

 

We worked our way along from the east edge of the sand towards the carpark at the middle of the bay.

 

There was more and more litter as we went west along the beach.

 

Lots of it was buried.

 

Here you can see the rope and the packing bands, some of which are still in a loop and deadly for marine animals. There are old containers which we think might have been used as improvised floats for creels since they still have the rope tied to the handle for keeping them in place.

 

After one last huge effort we carried the litter back to the bin and completely filled it!

 

Well done litter warriors!

Lets make sure everyone picks up 3 for the sea!